Court documents reveal the top tech firm’s HR practices that favoured its male over female employees
Women working at Microsoft’s offices in US have filed 238 complaints about discrimination or sexual harassment between 2010 and 2016, according to court documents made public on Monday.
The filings also revealed details about the tech company’s HR practices, submitted as part of the legal process.
Plaintiffs are suing Microsoft for systematically denying pay raises or promotions to its female employees, although Microsoft has denied of any existing policies.
Out of 118 gender discrimination complaints, only one was deemed “founded” by the company.
Microsoft said it has a robust system to investigate concerns raised by its employees and that it wanted them to speak up.
The company added that the plaintiffs were not able to cite real examples of a pay or promotion problem in which the investigations team would have found to be in violation of company policy.
A push for a class action lawsuit, which could cover more than 8,000 women, is yet to receive a ruling from a US district judge.
Microsoft budgets more than USD55 million a year to promote diversity and inclusion, according to court filings. The company had about 74,000 US employees at the end of 2017, reported Reuters.
